The Read: It's a bird! It's a plane!

San Diego-based IDW announced plans today to compile the rare strips, many of them never seen since they first appeared, and release them as hardbacks. The first one, "Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1958-1961," is due out in July and will contain more than 800 strips.

While many people know Superman from comic books, the Man of Steel also ran in newspapers from the late 1930s to the mid-1960s. Only about 10 percent of those strips have ever been reprinted, according to IDW.

The book project is a partnership between DC Entertainment, home to a variety of superheroes, and IDW's Library of American Comics, which has won industry awards for reprinting newspaper strips. It's other books feature Dick Tracy, Tarzan and Flash Gordon, among others.

In announcing the new deal, IDW said there are also plans to reprint newspaper comics featuring Batman and Wonder Woman.